The Economist's Take on the Eve of the Election

The Economist published a piece  at the end of the week, providing its last-minute analysis of the Canadian election. The sub-title to the article sums it up: A last-minute surge for the left might end up benefiting the right. Noting that the Globe & Mail had captured popular sentiment in describing Harper as "nasty, brutish - and competent," The Economist goes on to explain how the surge of NDP support may split the progressive vote sufficiently to serve up the long-elusive majority to the Harper Conservatives. - CM.

Why Would Anyone Vote...Liberal?!

Last week I wrote a rather extreme article suggesting that no one should vote NDP in this election, on the view that if you were conservative you would vote Tory, and if you were progressive and concerned about a Tory government, you really should vote strategically for the Liberals. Voting NDP would split the progressive vote, and would likely ensure a Conservative government, possibly even a majority one at that. A week is a long time in politics, as the saying goes. Now the NDP have blown by the Liberals in several polls, and so many could mockingly ask why anyone would vote Liberal - the same strategic calculus I advanced in my piece last week would suggest that progressive voters not wanting a Conservative government ought to vote NDP given the current numbers.

Perhaps. On the purely strategic argument, this may be true enough. But even half-a-week is a long time in politics. And polls can be soft - remember Truman and Dewey? This is not entirely unrelated to the strategic voting considerations. Because one has to question whether the NDP is ready for government, and whether that question is going to increasingly dawn on voters as election day looms. Ultimately, that is the test - when I argued for strategic voting for the Liberals, it was on the premise that the Liberals could not only plausibly win an election, but that they could form a better government than the Conservatives. That premise does not hold true for the NDP. Jack Layton and his party may have served an important role in opposition, and might even preform wonderfully as the official opposition - but the party simply does not have the bench strength, or frankly a set of realistic policies in hand, to form a government. And that should be a fundamental consideration on voting day.

Not Knowing What the Left Hand is Doing

Let's say its 2008 all over again. And you are a dashing, personally popular, mustachioed leader of a much less popular party on the left wing of the political spectrum that perennially finishes third or fourth. Your policies are old, comfortable, familiar to 15% - 20% of the electorate.  The party on the right can only grow so much because of fears about its hidden agenda and its awkward leader. The party in the centre has broken with its long tradition of selecting electable leaders. Climate change is on everybody's lips, so much so that it is the main plank of both the party in the centre and a new party on the left, the Greens. So, faced with this opportunity what do you do?

If your answer was bury your head in the sand, than you just might be Jack Layton. And your short-sighted decision then, is looking like its really going to hurt you now, in 2011.

Jack Layton is a committed environmentalist. He hasn't owned a car since 1983. His house, a charming semi in downtown Toronto is environmentally sound, retrofitted to reduce its footprint. And one suspects that he, like most environmentalists, recognise that without a real tax on carbon it will be next to impossible to mount an efficient and cost-effective campaign against greenhouse gas emissions.